On Lynn Hunt, “Inventing Human Rights”

As we begin Lynn Hunt’s book, Inventing Human Rights, this week, I thought it might be useful to highlight a few key concepts to keep in mind while reading. It might be interesting to think first about what you already associate with the following terms or categories: “the rights of man,” “human rights,” Republic(an), secular, citizen, torture, and empathy.

Next, while reading, think about how Hunt defines or reformulates these categories, and why she situates them within a broad historical context, perhaps one much broader than we anticipated. Think also about the wording of the title and how it relates to her overall argument: what can the juxtaposition of “inventing” with “human rights” tell us about the nature of such rights?

Inventing Human Rights has been praised and criticized for the boldness of its argument.  After you’ve read the Introduction and chapters 1 and 2 and started to form your own (preliminary) opinions about Hunt’s book, check out some of the book reviews published in academic journals and newspapers. I’ve provided a few links here:

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/books/review/Wood2.t.html

The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/article/genealogy-morals

The Harvard International Review: http://hir.harvard.edu/courting-africa/dark-ages-of-human-rights (review by Linda A. Malone, a law professor at William & Mary Law).

One key argument in Hunt’s work is about the way novels helped propel changing political ideas during the eighteenth century. In the comments section below, please answer the following question:

Have you ever read a novel (or alternatively seen a film, a work of art, or a song) that has changed your political perspective, or altered your sense of your place in the world and your ethical responsibilities towards others?

We’ll normally ask the French section to post and respond in French, but for this first assignment you can all post your responses in English. Please post your response by Wednesday, September 7th, at 5 p.m. so that we can review them before sections the next day.

25 thoughts on “On Lynn Hunt, “Inventing Human Rights””

  1. Car chacun de ces commentaires est en anglais, j’espère que ce n’est pas un problème que j’écris en français…

    Pendant que je lisais “Inventing Human Rights” – spécialement la partie au commencement du livre qui a décrit l’effet des épistolaires sur l’empathie de la société en général – j’ai immédiatement pensé au titre d’un livre “épistolaire” que j’ai lu pendant mon premier semestre à Duke. Ce livre s’appelait “Claire D’Albe”, publié en 1798 par Sophie Cottin, et il ressemble beaucoup à “Julie” de Rousseau, et à “Clarissa” de Richardson selon les descriptions de ces livres célèbres que Hunt a donné dans son livre. Hunt écrit que les livres épistolaires enseignent leurs lecteurs à sympathiser avec les autres êtres humains parce qu’ils permettent les lecteurs de sentir les émotions intimes des personnages avec lesquels ils ne partageraient rien normalement. Je suis d’accord avec Hunt, que ce type de leçon sur la sympathie devait être essentiel pour l’invention des droits de l’homme. Mais, ce que je voulais dire avec cette petite commentaire est comment un autre livre épistolaire m’a influencé de la même façon que les autres épistolaires ont influencé la société pendant la XVIIème siècle.

    “Claire D’Albe” est l’histoire d’une jeune belle femme mariée à un homme bien plus âgé qu’elle. Le livre commence avec une lettre écrite par Claire à sa meilleure amie. Dans cette lettre et les autres qui la suivent, le lecteur découvre que Claire est en vacances à la campagne avec son mari et leurs deux enfants. En lisant le livre, on apprend que Claire n’est pas contente dans son mariage et qu’elle cherche, presque inconsciemment, pour une autre façon de vivre. Quand le fils adopté de son mari, Frédéric, arrive à la maison de vacances de Claire, il tombe amoureux d’elle. Montrant la même passion que Hunt a noté dans les livres de Rousseau et Richardson, Claire sacrifie éventuellement ses vertus et ses mœurs et succombe à l’amour de Frédéric et à la désespoir de leur relation.

    Le récit de Claire est important à cause de la manière dans laquelle il est raconté. Comme Hunt a commenté, les lettres “envoyées” entre les personnages laisse le lecteur sentir la compassion, la compréhension, même l’amitié vers les personnages. Quand j’ai lu “Claire D’Albe”, j’ai éprouvé cette capacité forte des livres épistolaires, même si les personnages ne ressemblaient pas du tout moi-même. Donc, je peux vraiment comprendre quand Hunt écrit que les livres épistolaires ont encouragé la société du XVIIIème siècle de sympathiser avec les autres.

  2. I have been fortunate enough to have been raised my parents who encouraged me to seek my own political and ethical opinions. So over the years I have read many amazing books and seen many wonderful movies and documentaries that have helped shaped my views and lifestyle.

    Though recently, the documentary that has changed me the most has been Food Inc. Before watching the movie, I had never thought about what was in the food I ate or where it came from beyond the grocery store. Afterwards I began to read book after book and research exactly the source of my food. I shared the movie with my friends and explained to family what exactly it meant to eat sustainably, organic, local and with compassion. Currently I am a vegetarian, but Food Inc. was only the first step down that path for me. It became a passion for me that changed all my views. I researched into politics and food policy, and decided that at Duke this is what I want to pursue.

    All of that political awakening began with the movie Food Inc. It really is quite amazing what a well put together and convincing argument can do. In a way this ties into Hunt and human rights. One of our basic, inalienable rights is the right to eat and have food. Something that is so close and precious to who we are as people should not be easily shoved to the side of our consciousness. We have the right to good, safe, healthy food that comes from a reliable source.

  3. Being faced with this question of whether a novel had ever altered my sense of ethical responsibility toward others, having read the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand over the summer, and reviewing the responses students have posted about such authors thus far, I was reminded of another book, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. While this novel did not necessarily sway me or change my philosophy about human rights or man’s relationship to others, it was perhaps because it was the first time I was introduced to eighteenth century concepts such as nihilism and utilitarianism and the implications of these ways of thinking were too jarring to internalize. The idea that one could reject family and societal bonds as meaningless, or think that moral decisions should be based on the greatest happiness for the largest number of people [thus allowing for senseless, matter-of-fact, murder as we see with the protagonist, Raskolnikov] was intriguing and eye-opening, but ultimately difficult to agree with.

    I feel similarly about the idea of crime and punishment before the 1760s, where the death penalty was so common, and carried out in such gruesome ways that people were desensitized enough to go out and watch [with pleasure in many cases]. How could this ever have been the case? Does this mean that people really learned empathy at one point or another? I must admit that I had never previously entertained the idea that people are not born with the capacity to empathize, and that it took a great societal shift for the invocation of human rights to become second nature, but if it’s true, could people have learned it through reading novels? I suppose there is evidence for this, like the success of Rousseau’s Julie, but I agree with New York Times author Gordon Woods when he says that Hunt’s argument about “heightened novel reading seems much more a consequence than a cause of the new feelings of equality and sympathy.” It was interesting to read that even Voltaire noticed this shift in his lifetime.

    The educated elite, and even many of the leading reformers, did not immediately grasp the connection between the emerging rights language and torture and cruel punishment. Voltaire railed against the miscarriage of justice in the Calas case, but he did not originally object to the fact that the old man had been tortured or broken on the wheel. If natural compassion makes everyone detest the cruelty of judicial torture, as Voltaire said later, then why was this not obvious before the seventeen sixties, even to him? Evidently some kind of blinder had operated to inhibit the operation of empathy before then. 81

    I for one don’t believe in the inherent hypocrisy of taking the life of a murderer, but I think Hunt brings up an important point with the wording of the title Inventing Human Rights and with her discussion of the death penalty. The existence of such a punishment mirrors the intent of her title, implying the human creation of these rights. If we can take away these natural, self-evident rights, does that also mean we invented and assigned them to mankind or were they, in the end, always present, waiting to be articulated?

  4. I have yet to find a book or piece of art that has completely shaken my political views, but the documentary film Waste Land certainly shifted my perceptions of others, particularly in relation to my travels. Travelling to Third World countries with my family or through school-related trips certainly opens one’s eyes to true poverty and destitution. Growing up in the U.S. and seeing homeless people, I assumed their misfortune wasn’t misfortune at all; rather, that it was the direct result of poor personal decisions. While I always knew extreme poverty was inherent in Third World countries, as their conditions undermine the ability of citizens to move out of poverty, it was still hard for me to look at the lowest echelons of Third World society without feeling the same sentiments, or placing some degree of blame on the individual.

    The documentary Waste Land is interesting in that it profiles the mixed-media artist Vik Muniz, telling the story of his art through film. For one project, Muniz traveled to Brazil to the world’s largest landfill, where people live sorting through the trash to find recyclables and valuables. Muniz talked to a handful of workers, gathering their stories and getting to know them before photographing them. He then used trash from the landfill (and the help of the workers themselves) to create room-sized portraits based on the photographs. Hearing these workers talk – people who I otherwise would have passed on a street and dismissed as beggars, the consequences of their own vices – made me realize that inequity and severe poverty, particularly in Third World countries, is rarely self-imposed. I found their stories relatable, fascinating, and saw that many of these people were no less capable than myself, but simply lacked the societal and monetary resources to escape.

    Here’s a picture of one of his pieces – at first glance, it’s hard to tell it’s made entirely of garbage:
    http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2011/2/24/1298558104588/Waste-Land-007.jpg

  5. The first novel that comes to mind is “Shogun” by James Clavell. Set in 1600, a Dutch trading ship crashes and its sailors are stranded in Japan. At this time very little is known of each other’s cultures other than that they exist. As the leader of the surviving sailors, James Blackthorne is treated better and deals with the upper echillon of Japanese society. As he learns their culture, he learns to be one them. There is a lesson in learning to accept other cultures and learning to accept and understand ideas that are extremely radical compared to your own. Half way through the book, he sees the other sailors again in a bar/prostitute house in a poorer part of town and is disgusted. The other sailors have no qualms, but what struck me about this scene was that he could have easily been one of them. He had never thought badly of them before, but after having been cultured by the Japanese upper class, he thinks that the people living in this neighborhood and with this lifestyle are below him. His “fate” (although he was pilot on the ship for a reason) in Japan seemed just as arbitrary as the sailors’. While I could understand his change in thinking, I was very turned off by it. These men were his friends, but now that he was more “cultured” he didn’t accept them. They were not any less the men he had sailed with.

    The other work of art that comes to mind is the film “Schindler’s List”. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a very powerful story about a man who helps Jews escape Nazi Germany. Schindler learns to empathize with the Jewish people and understands that they are people to who do not deserve this fate and he risks his life to help them.

    I’ve wondered what it would be like to have lived during this time or during a time with slavery. Today, the idea of human rights is engrained in our mind, it is part of our being. But before this idea evolved, would we have believed that slaves were born with human rights as well? It is repugnant to think that we would ever think like that, or that Jews should be killed. But the context changes things. People clearly did believe this. What would have had to happen for us to change our minds?

    Hunt’s idea that the idea of human rights largely comes from novels is interesting. I don’t know if I would fully support that. I feel like there has to be so much more going on socially and politically for something as big as human rights to evolve. But I do like her argument that for human rights to develop one had to develop a sense of self, autonomy and empathy. People had to change the way in which they viewed themselves and their position in society.

  6. Reading Hunt’s argument about how books like Julie, Clarissa, and Pamela helped intellectuals empathize with the injustice directed at other social classes, I could not help making the connection to another, more modern, social cause: environmentalism.

    Just as the public recognition of the “rights of man” seemed to be dependent upon society’s “newfound” medium of peering into someone else’s life, whatever impetus the modern environmentalist movement has is largely attributable to books, movies, photographs, and other media that not only forced the public to confront environmental problems outside of their own backyards, but did so in a way that implied a shared responsibility to clean up the earth. Three especially prominent works come to mind: “Silent Spring,” by Rachel Carson, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” and “Our Stolen Future,” by Colborn, Dumanoski, and Meyers.

    “Silent Spring”, widely considered the cornerstone text of the modern environmental movement, described the negative effects of manmade pollutants, especially pesticides, on the beauty and the safety of the environment and wildlife. “An Inconvenient Truth” was a famous call to arms primarily on the cause of carbon emissions, and was notable for the eminence of its presenter, former vice president Al Gore, and for the fact that it was a film, which allowed it to reach a much broader public audience. “Our Stolen Future” highlights the effects of PCBs and Dioxins, potent poisons found in many synthetic materials, on human health and the ecosystem.

    These three texts made arguments firmly couched in fact and scientific rigor; however, their impression on the public was primarily a function of their emotional appeal. All three utilized dramatic, urgent diction to underline the necessity of the environmental cause, and their arguments revolved around the idea that environmental degradation endangers that which is dear to us: our health, our families, our homes, and the beauty of nature. Moreover, these arguments were often catalyzed by images of suffering wrought on others, sometimes people or animals in far-off cultures and continents, by environmental problems. Their call-to-arms was founded upon the pity, horror, disgust, and rage that these images provoked. Like the epistolary novels of the 18th century, these texts rely on the human tendency to relate to another’s situation, even if it is far removed from one’s own.

  7. I have never really seen any work of art that has changed my perspective vis a vis of a political decision. Well let me think again; my brother showed me a movie on the happenings of the 9/11 and when this event occured, I definitely felt a lot of empathy vis a vis the American population. Especially me seeing this while I was all the way in Africa. However after having looked at this movie, a lot went through my mind. I started to doubt the authencity of this attack and my blame point shifted a lot in the opposite direction. I don’t want to dwell on this point for too long.
    However after having read part of Hunt’s book, a lot of stuff became clear to me. Empathy is denitely a huge part of my life. Almost predominant and also the idea that it is linked with human rights. I see how that is possible and how it is also important. It is because we feel a certain way towards a behavior that we are able to accomodate it in certain ways. The way Hunt goes through the whole process of how human rights were discovered/written up makes me just think that everything we do or what happens around us is definitely not only shaped by nature. It is predominantly shaped by us and we hold a very strong power in being able to change it. Once again empathy, we identify.
    Looking back at Africa, why are we able to say that such happening is a violation of human rights like the war in eastern Congo. It is because we have a particular emotion to the circumstance, and are able to react contrary to the fact that is not right. We therefore “declare” that it is not right. It is just interesting to see and think back.

  8. I’m finding it difficult to pick just one work since the arts have influenced me so much over the course of my life, but I would say that The Wire has had an incredibly profound impact on me. I started The Wire in 2009, and since then I’ve returned to re-watch the series on three different occasions, each time learning more about myself and the world which surrounds me. Over the course of the 60+ hours, David Simon and his team manage to deconstruct and examine, in an unparalleled realism, some of the most pressing issues plaguing American society today. The story unfolds in Baltimore and provides a study of the effect of large institutions on its members: the police, politicians, the criminals, the addicts, and the ordinary citizen. Where the show really gains its “best show ever” tag is that it forces the viewers to think about and begin their own discussions of the issues touched upon: the failure of the war on drugs, the gradual extinction of the American worker, and the tragedy of the school system to name a few.

    As a kid living in a comfortable, predominantly white suburb, I initially thought that I would find the tales of the characters inaccessible, that their world was one far from mine and that in our largely segregated society I would rarely feel the effects of cataclysms in their domain. From watching The Wire, I began to understand that whether one is a cop, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge, a kid in the inner city, or a person with my upbringing, all are ultimately compromised and must deal with whatever institution they are committed to; one must also accept that the effects in one domain are undeniably felt in another. In the same way that novels began to alter the social and political outlooks in the 18th century, I recognized myself in the characters, experienced the same feelings as them, and learned to empathize with people who I am not able to access easily. There’s an empathy that I gained towards the kids trapped in the school system, which as noted in season 4, serves to merely place the “graduates” onto the streets, ready to become the new participants in the drug game. Unlike the melodramatic obsession present in Waiting for Superman, the honesty and reality with which The Wire treats the same issue gives you a real glimpse into the situation.

    I learned to empathize with even the dealers, the addicts, the gay hit man. When I heard that Kansas City schools were cutting music programs, I decided to give free music lessons to kids in our neighborhood. I started volunteering at a local food kitchen in downtown Kansas City, and soon became good friends with a former addict turned rehab mentor. I had the privilege of attending a few meetings, and the opportunity to listen to the stories of these people for whom the system has done little positive. Perhaps what’s been missing in all of our governmental initiatives is that they don’t attempt to really understand the problems from the perspectives of the people being affected. We try to identify with, to empathize, to interact, but these relations are perhaps too shallow – we don’t involve ourselves to the point where the realization emerges that these people different from us are in fact our equals. We share the same feelings, and have the same desires in life. What Hunt says about the alteration of the human mind feels really on point. Similar experiences fostered through reading, performing, working, interacting can create a new social context and new understanding.

    A scene I really like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HUlTKvDUI

  9. As an intrepid young high schooler I thought I knew the world. I bristled when others attempted to correct or disprove one of my beliefs, and I certainly considered my truths to be self-evident. However, all of that changed when I first opened 1984. 1984 presented me with a dystopia that so radically altered my perception of the world that I can honestly say I cannot remember how I used to think. What had previously been so well defined became vague and clouded. Clouded not only by thoughts of governmental authority and the rapidly diminishing amount of privacy we all possess, but also by the very idea of life itself. How do you define happiness? Life itself? Is life best served when successful and functional? Are we truly cogs in a vast machine fooled into believing that our individuality truly matters? Do we have rights? Or are we made to believe we have rights so as to placate us?

    When reading Lynn Hunt’s “Inventing Human Rights” I consistently returned to her idea of empathy, of the development of a self-identity that delimits my life from yours and allows me to better understand you because I now have a point of reference. From this vantage point the idea of nature and society blossomed into discussions on what is inherent and what is artificial. Who is the arbiter of the individual’s place in mankind? 1984 was the first book that introduced such abstract notions to me, and ever since it has given me a framework by which I can analyze my world, and see what need be seen. Within this framework I have become (as anyone who truly fears totalitarian dystopias) libertarian, and my ethical compass points much in the same direction. Why should I dictate what you do so long as it does not conflict with the well-being of other members of our society? We are ultimately individuals who (following Rousseau’s idea of a social contract) must live our own lives, and submit only that which is necessary to society so that it may function smoothly without harming our civil liberties and human rights.

    1984 provided an endpoint, a worst-case scenario that has forever echoed in my mind whenever I conceive of the ramifications of a given political policy or social action. Ultimately, I believe that constraining the individual erodes the very essence of humanity, and in doing so leads us every closer to the groupthink that 1984 so harshly condemns.

  10. What I find most interesting about the first chapters of Lynn Hunt’s text is her argument that the changing trends in literacy and literature in the 18th century nourished new concepts of human rights not by directly trying to convince the middle class of their importance, but by making these readers aware of the complexity and universality of the human story. That is, novels like Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse did not argue in favor of rights for women; instead, they inspired such passionate emotions that readers began to unknowingly sympathize with and recognize as legitimate the internal needs, desires, and thoughts of characters entirely unlike themselves. This phenomenon of acknowledging the human-ness of others seems to be a necessary precursor to the widespread acceptance of what we would consider basic human rights. In the same vein, I think that my personal political and ethical beliefs have been shaped more by films, books and art that indirectly reveal something about the people they describe than by anything that has a blatant social or political agenda.
    At the same time, I do think the existence of books and films that address controversial (or perhaps unknown) issues that are not typically appreciated by the general public is very important, because they help render difficult problems more accessible. One example that comes to mind relates to a course I’ve taken on the legacy of the Algerian War in French film and theatre. Issues like torture, terrorism and the displacement of Algerian refugees are not easy to come to terms with, but films like Le petit soldat and the recent La Trahison are very powerful in their ability to inspire emotions in the viewer. Of course, understanding the consequences of “dirty wars” and the long term effects of decolonization remain just as important today as they did fifty years ago. It is apparently far too easy to dehumanize conflicts that occur far from home.

  11. One film, for me, remains true in the fact that it very much altered my perception of the world, its different kinds of people, and my concept of human rights. “Dances with Wolves,” starring and directed by Kevin Costner (and originally a novel by Michael Blake) tells the historically fictitious Western story of Lieutenant Dunbar and his dealings with Lakota Sioux Indians. Because the film did not paint the American conquest of the Western land in a one-sided fashion, I was able to decide for myself what I thought about this historical event and not simply applaud the behaviors of the Union Army. Although the Indian characters in this film were not real, the taking of Western land and forcing Native American Indians off their land to relocate was very real. In the movie, I was enthralled with the Sioux characters as Lieutenant Dunbar was and quite literally shared his thoughts when a voiceover of his diary was shared throughout the movie. Watching the end of the movie and knowing that eventually all of these Indian tribes would end up on reservations somewhere other than their original homeland, I thought about human moralities pertaining to the treatment of races different than my own. Keeping in mind what we have read this past week in “Inventing Human Rights,” I am forced to revisit questions such as “Were the Native American Indians given Human Rights as ‘men’ stated in the Constitution?” and “What allowed Americans to force one group of people off of their land? Was it within their right?” All, I see, as questions that must stem from personal opinion upon the definition of human rights—a definition that you invent.
    I can see Hunt’s perspective regarding novels as the fuel for a change in political ideas. Especially in the eighteenth century, novels were a way to escape from the everyday and dive into a character, a life other than one’s own. It is only natural, then, that the reader begins to project themselves onto the characters that they are reading about, comparing their lives and interests (including political and ethical) with the ones in the novels. With a successful novel like Rousseau’s Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse in which there is Christian renunciation, it seems that this subject will impact readers as much as the plot itself. Although some have criticized Hunt’s argument as too bold, I do believe she makes extremely valid points as far as novels and plays possessing influence in people’s political and social ideals.

  12. This question reminds me of the human rights theories put forth by Richard Rorty (http://web1.uct.usm.maine.edu/~bcj/issues/three/rorty.html), who addresses the importance of education in countering human rights violations. He believes that “sentimental education” can encourage empathy, thereby preventing dehumanization, thereby reducing human rights violations. This parallels Hunt’s discussion of how novels galvanized people’s tendency towards empathy.

    I am also not entirely convinced of legitimate extent of Hunt’s claim, particularly with respect to the somewhat contradictory discussions of the innateness of empathy versus the need to cultivate it. However, the link between empathy and human rights is a strong one, and when thinking about books/movies/films that have in some way altered my sense of my ethical responsibilities or political beliefs, the first example that comes to my mind is Roots, which we watched as part of my seventh grade social studies class. There was clear intent in the curriculum to instill a sort of educated empathy in us. Prior to watching the movie, when reading portions of the book and other accounts of slavery, I was certainly empathetic. However, when faced with the more extremely emotional (and non-abstract) content of the movie, I felt a stronger sense of empathy and emotion, as well as corresponding indignation. As with Rousseau’s Julie, the depth of the emotional content was strongly influential. In this case, I would mark watching Roots as having pushed me to actually consider the capacity of people to violate each other’s rights. After that point, I think it was easier for me to understand that human rights violations are not abstract occurrences that just happen, but that are carried out and can be prevented by others.

  13. I’ll reuse an example from someone above as I am in the middle of reading Rand’s Shrugged. Going into it I would have classified myself as being left-leaning but decidedly closer to the middle than towards the extreme. After getting halfway through the (massive) affair, I can absolutely tell how it appeals to those who might be conservative (if not well-heeled characters in general).
    Throughout the book, I couldn’t help but feel an intense attraction to he protagonists for their incredible drive and top flight efficiency. In contrast, Rand makes a terrific case for loathing the people in government and other business sectors that do a terrible job and hold back the country. The controls that they put in to effect to limit competition and promote the “public welfare” only seem to push the country into a stronger tailspin…
    In response to the ideas above about how the glorification of certain excellent people is at the expense of the individual, I would have to disagree. Take for instance the way in which we glorify sports stars. From Lebron in basketball, to Brady in football, to Messi in futbol, and on and on and on, we cherish and hope for greatness. Does that mean that the remaining players on the team don’t matter? Of course not! If anything, the supporting cast is as important or more so than the superstar. But the superstar is who puts fans in seats or sells jerseys or what have you. So the counterpoint would be something like, “maybe we shouldn’t hold athletes or public figures in such high regard”. I think that that is an unrealistic way to participate in society these days. A person can have worth without being talked about in superlative terms, or without getting the same coverage as Glenn Beck or…whoever really.

  14. Part of the reason that Lynn Hunt’s argument in Inventing Human Rights, that novels had a transforming effect on their audience by promoting new political ideas in the 18th century, is so interesting is that the same effect can be seen today when consumers are confronted with a new movie, book, or piece of art. One of the books that stood out to me as I thought about this prompt is Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem, which I read in high school when I decided to do a country profile on Lebanon. Since the book is written by a New York Times reporter, the style and presentation is naturally different than a history book or a fictional novel and therefore I believe that Friedman is able to relate his experiences in a way that made the topic all the more real to me as the reader. Growing up in New York and being interested in a mainly Eurocentric history, this book helped open my eyes wide to a whole new area of the world that I did not fully understand. In fact, before reading Friedman’s piece I didn’t give much thought to, nor would have believed I would have been interested in, learning about the Middle East. The utter destruction done to a city like Beirut, which once held the title of the “Paris of the Middle East” seemed so humbling, and at the same time Friedman clearly demonstrated the determination of its people to persevere and carry on with their lives through extraordinary circumstances.
    Having never traveled to the Middle East until after I read the book, From Beirut to Jerusalem opened my eyes to the idea that the people living in these countries that I always “wrote off” as war zones or conflict areas were simply trying to live their lives in the same way as everyone was in countries that were at peace. Reading this book instilled in me a sense of importance in understanding the history of a conflict in order to truly understand the politics of the world today, and emphasized the role that historical divisions continue to play. Reading about the problems in the Middle East also helped shift my focus to other regions of the world, and inspired me to try to learn more about parts of the globe that I otherwise would not have really focused on. In the United States I believe it is easy to fall into a pattern of seeing our country as central to the world, which then leads us to view the problems in the Middle East and the rest of the world only through the lens of how they affect America and the West. Friedman really opened my eyes to the importance of these conflicts occurring now in the Middle East, to the effect on the people living in those countries specifically, and has led me to think about what these populations which have gone through (and continue to go through) so much can teach us.
    From Beirut to Jerusalem also provided me with insight into a period of recent history where people were trying to determine what type of government they wanted to have, what values would come to represent their country, and who should be in positions of power and leadership. These are questions that to some degree are taken for granted in Western democratic nations, in part because of the actions taken during the Age of Revolution, but they are still undecided (or at least not implemented) in so many other parts of the world. Learning about countries that are still unstable and fighting to determine their identity in the 20th/21st century provides new perspective, and places significant importance on the discussion of subjects such as human rights, empathy and citizenship.

  15. The film Hotel Rwanda changed my perspective of the world by showing me man’s capacity for irrationality and extreme violence. Hotel Rwanda is the story of a Rwandan hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina, who turns the hotel he manages into a safe-haven for refugees during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Hotel Rwanda portrays the destruction caused by the genocide very realistically; in perhaps the most horrifying scene of the movie, Paul’s car has trouble driving down a long road. Paul exits the car, in order to see what obstruction is preventing the car from moving, and is aghast when he sees hundreds of dead bodies strewn throughout the road. Although I was intellectually familiar with several genocides, I was truly taken aback by this graphic image.

    The image of the dead bodies was appalling for several reasons. Of course, the sheer number of dead bodies was appalling. In addition, since so many people were killed on the same street, the implication is that the perpetrators of the killing went door to door and killed everyone in sight. Further, the genocide was split on caste lines, which were artificial creations of European colonists; the fact that anyone would kill so many people based on something so artificial highlights the irrationality of the genocide. Another aspect that appalled me was the obvious disrespect for human life. This was evidenced not only by the mass killing, but also by the fact that the bodies were left lying in street, where they would be run over by cars, rather than buried (or at least dragged aside). Finally, given the extent of the atrocities committed in Rwanda and society’s familiarity with several other genocides that were perpetrated over the course of the twentieth century, it was startling that the rest of the world failed to intervene; the movie portrays the United Nations peacekeeping force as woefully inadequate.

    After watching Hotel Rwanda, there was no doubt in my mind that the atrocities committed in Rwanda were human rights violations. I took the existence of human rights for granted, however, and assumed that, at some point in history, man became civilized enough to realize that brutalizing other humans was morally repugnant. It was not until I read Lynn Hunt’s Inventing Human Rights that it occurred to me that human rights might be “invented.” Hunt argues persuasively that we owe the concept of human rights to a series of societal developments and the hard work of several Enlightenment philosophers. Had history transpired differently, it is possible that we would not regard human rights as “self-evident,” to use Thomas Jefferson’s words from the Declaration of Independence. But what would Thomas Jefferson say if he knew of the atrocities committed in Rwanda? Would he change his mind about the self-evidence of human rights? After all, how can human rights be considered truly self-evident if they can be violated on so great a scale while the world looks the other way? Society must hold itself to a higher standard and prove that human rights truly are self-evident. Otherwise, we must begin to question the principles on which our nation was founded.

  16. One of the novels that have contributed principally to the shaping of my imagination about the world is “A thousand splendid suns” by Khaled Hosseini. Similar to Hosseini’s prior bestseller work “The kite runner”, “A thousand splendid suns” unveils to readers the inconceivable inequalities and cruelty in contemporary Afghan society as it repeatedly undergoes revolutions and invasions and finds itself in hands of successive totalitarian governments. The book centers around the turbulent lives of two Afghan women, Mariam and Laila, who have very divergent backgrounds, but are brought together through marriage to a man named Rasheed. Upon reading the novel, I was first and foremost appalled by the sheer misogyny of the Taliban government. As a junior in high school, I had previously learned of Taliban’s existence, but only as a terrorist force. Its vicious politics towards women, made possible through a religious premise, was totally new and shocking. This is where Hunt’s idea of identification and empathy through reading fictional works strikes a chord. Hosseini’s magnificent writing really allows one to experience that sense of “torrent of emotions” (36) and “empathize across class, sex, and national lines” (38). It was awful to imagine that the fates of women in the world can be that disparate. For the first time, I realized that many privileges that I had seen as inherent and had taken for granted, such as respect and love, and the power to make choices, are in fact not extended universally. Hunt writes about how “[those who so confidently declared rights to be universal] excluded always and everywhere women.” (18) The case of the Taliban government is a little bit different, since they justified their institutions through Islam instead of agreeing on a pact of rights, but their exclusion and degradation of women nevertheless again verify that women had always been left behind in the contest for human rights.

    Another fascinating fact was that prior to reading the novel, I never really investigated into the Soviet Union’s political conquest in the Middle East. I have my education to partly put the blame on; growing up in Vietnam and attending school there for most of my adolescent life, it was hard to imagine a Soviet Union that was anything but anti-imperialistic and oriented towards the ultimate goodness. Yet “A thousand splendid suns” really served as a starting point for me to question the role of the Soviet Union, as well as the biases in my education in general.

    The final point is not so much connected to the book as to the link between the communist government and human rights, specifically women’s human rights. In the West, the term “communist government” has generally insinuated the denial of human rights. And yet when you look at it, the communist doctrine does not discriminate between the participation of men or women; nor does it use sex as a base to determine who gets which rights. I think it’s a very interesting phenomenon to think about.

  17. A book that left a huge impact on me is A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. It’s a memoir of his experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Before reading it, I had never really thought about child soldiers or about the people who conscript them, and if I had thought about them, I would have simply thought, “People who choose to become violent in such a way or who force children to become violent are barbarians, lacking a basic understanding of human rights.”

    Upon reading the book, however, I saw from the narrator, Ishmael’s, point of view, and my opinion changed. His becoming a child soldier was not a result of a character flaw innate within him, or stupidity, or anything like that. Rather, it was what he had to do at the time in order to feed himself and stay alive. I saw how his becoming a soldier enabled him to find a new family among comrades, which was essential to cope with the fact that his biological family had been murdered in a village raid. Ishmael’s human rights were infringed upon; his family, his sustenance, and his right to a peaceful childhood were taken from him. As Ishmael moved up in the ranks, gained prestige among his comrades, and started recruiting other child soldiers, I learned about how, through this, he gained autonomy, a higher degree of security, and rights.

    The phenomenon of empathizing that I experienced while reading A Long Way Gone is the same as that described in Lynn Hunt’s Inventing Human Rights, as she discusses how the reading of novels increased society’s ability to understand people in different classes and situations. As I saw everything from Ishmael’s eyes, it became more reasonable to me why he did things I would have otherwise considered unreasonable and unjustifiable.

    The ability to empathize is crucial, I think, in dealing with any such catastrophes that are going on in the world. In the Nation’s review of Hunt’s Inventing Human Rights (http://www.thenation.com/article/genealogy-morals), it’s noted that this empathy must not only be with people suffering from highly visible human rights violations, such as torture, but also with people suffering from the “structural wrongs that are less easy to see.” In Ishmael’s memoir, Ishmael is clearly infringing upon human rights as he brainwashes young people to become vicious soldiers. The empathy we feel with these young people who he conscripted motivates us to take action against people who train child soldiers. However, we must also make sure to examine the structural wrongdoings suffered by Ishmael and those who recruited him; people don’t take up arms and force children to become soldiers unless they feel they are, in some way, being deprived of their rights, be that due to a corrupt government, to being in a looked-down-upon minority, or to chronic poverty.

  18. Perhaps also a slightly cliché choice, but I would undoubtedly count Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals” (the summer reading book for Duke’s Class of 2015, which I read as a FAC) among the books that have resonated most with me and spoke most poignantly about better understanding one’s station in the world – and due to how recently I read it, its messages are also clearest in my mind.

    Although this particular book examines questions of morality and ethics largely based on human-animal relationships, rather than from the political and social interactions and structures among people specifically, I believe many of the arguments Foer makes can be extrapolated and applied in the context of human society. For instance, Foer discusses and questions how our personal perceptions of different animals impact the nature of our relationship with them and their kind; e.g. we look affectionately upon dogs and cats as beloved and pampered pets, while we can be almost remorseless in eating chickens, turkeys, and pigs. Furthermore, humans may feel entitled or justified in consuming other animals which we deem “inferior” to ourselves, but as Foer aptly remarks, this poses a new challenge if a new species more intelligent and powerful than humans was to appear and consider humans fit for consumption.

    This in no way insinuates that the historical and political conflicts in France are akin to humans eating animals (although perhaps one could argue that there existed a sort of metaphorical cannibalism in which the nobility exploited the serfs for their own profit). Nevertheless, I think both situations share a fundamental underlying similarity, the importance of how we perceive ourselves and others around us (whether people or animals). This is acknowledged by Foer and also relates closely to Hunt’s discussions of how developing empathy and sympathy ultimately contributed to political and social reform. Despite the differences in specific circumstances, I think both examples illustrate the necessity to define and understand one’s own place in the world and relative to others, from thinking we are intellectually superior to fish to the monarchy and clergy’s mistreatment of members of the “Third Estate” for being a more subservient social class.

    I also found interesting the importance of emotional appeal in both Foer’s work (by offering graphic details of factory-farmed animals’ miserable lives) and Hunt’s “Inventing Human Rights” (for example, instigating reform by harnessing mass passion/sentiment or reconciling emotion with reason). By extrapolating Hunt’s ideas, I think it’s plausible that if people can learn to feel empathy for others and in turn demand human rights based on that connection, they could arguably eventually form a similar defense for currently victimized animals.

    (My apologies if this started to turn into an ‘animal rights’ comparison! I simply noted a fascinating potential analogy between the different classes or estates of pre-Revolution French society and the human/animal hierarchy.)

  19. Much has changed since the 18th-century beginnings of human rights described in Lynn Hunt’s “Inventing Human Rights.” Most books do not hold the same galvanizing powers as then, and few would be surprised to hear that women and the lower classes experience the same emotions as the rest of society. In light of this, a work that has significantly influenced my political and ethical perspective is a film called Milk, the true story of an openly gay elected official in 1970’s California. While I have always been a supporter of gay rights, this film allowed me to see into the life of an ardent activist who bravely fought for basic rights that most people take for granted, eventually losing his life for them. Gay rights were previously somewhat of an abstract concept to me, but Milk poignantly depicted the real people and emotions associated with the cause. In addition to documenting the past struggles of the gay rights movement – and the high price paid for them – it also called my attention to contemporary issues in the same realm. After seeing the film, whose 2008 release coincided with the voting in California for Proposition 8, I was both outraged and heartbroken to realize that people in our generation are still fighting to take rights away from certain groups of people. It has been hundreds of years since human rights were first “invented,” but unfortunately to this day they have not been fully realized.

  20. This may be a bit cliché, but after viewing Last King of Scotland and Hotel Rwanda, I certainly altered the way in which I viewed the world. As an American, I find it extremely easy to take the stable political system for granted. Politicians from opposing parties may tear each other apart during campaign seasons via posters, web shows and TV commercials, but the damage inflicted is never physical. Unfortunately, in places like Uganda and Rwanda, political turmoil resulted in not only social and economic confusion but also in death.
    It is safe to say that without these periods of violence, these African nations would have developed into completely different entities. Like Uganda and Rwanda, France also experienced years of political turmoil (at the 18th century’s close), which altered the evolution of nation. With the blood of French from all social and economic groups, the Revolution abolished the mighty monarchy for a Republic. Though the Republic fails to endure throughout the 19th century, the first Revolution is an effective example of how violence leads to political change.
    In the United States, power has shifted from one politician to another in a peaceful manner for more than two hundred years therefore, it is interesting to study the various method nations use to settle their political battles.

  21. One novel that has altered my perception of societal norms and my own place in the world is “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe. The novel centers around the main character Okonkwo, a man who lived in a Nigerian tribe in the 19th century. His life is altered due to the influx of foreign colonizers. The British completely overturned the way of life for Okonkwo and his people- their traditions, their mannerisms, and their religious obligations were forced to change forever.
    In her novel “Inventing Human Rights”, Hunt made an interesting point in discussing how empathy may have brought about the advent of human rights. When one identifies with someone else, one obtains the “moral sympathy” that coincides with human rights. Similarly, in “Things Fall Apart”, empathy plays an important role for the reader. One feels sympathetic for Okonkwo and identifies with his tribal life, as Chinua Achebe describes his position in society as the leader and head of his family. When the British arrive and overtake his people, I had a realization of how the European style of living is not necessarily the ‘right’ way or the ‘only’ way. I feel that I now have the responsibility to respect other cultures and dismiss the notion that my style of living is in any way superior to way of life of others.

  22. Although I currently do not hold these political opinions, Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged left a profound impact on me when I first read them in high school. Like the readers in the 18th century, I was swept away by raw emotion – and repeated brainwashing. I was overwhelmed with “sympathy” by Roark’s genius and integrity and the blatantly unfair, unappreciative leeches around him, even though I had absolutely nothing in common with him. The novel briefly slanted me towards a different political view, in light of the greed of the masses. In a way, Fountainhead would stand as a contrast to Clarissa or Pamela; one rare individual is glorified, but all the others stand on very unequal ground. After reading 700 pages (and a further 1000 in Atlas Shrugged), enraptured by the clear, vivid writing, it’s easy to come away feeling changed. It took a few years for me to actually come to my senses and realize that elitism and glorification of pure brilliance, to the exclusion of everything else, fails to take into account the value of each individual.

    Even now, however, I still want to give credit where it’s due; I have a propensity towards encouraging those who excel in what they do so that they can continue towards greatness. I don’t know if this is because I was already naturally elitist, raised to value intelligence and giftedness, or because I’ve really been brainwashed by Ayn Rand.

    A few months ago, I watched a documentary called Wasteland that poignantly and effectively captured the carelessness with which Westerners treat trash – and recycling. The sentence “99 is not 100” stuck with me even until now, showing me the necessity for recycling and giving dignity to those whose labor usually go unappreciated. Even my actions, minor as they are, contribute to (or rather, detract) from the environmental state of the world. It was an incredible documentary to watch with a group of friends; we definitely all left feeling stunned and more connected to a larger world.

    I don’t know if novels can cause as much of a stir now as they did in Rousseau’s time; although books may be written with a bit of an agenda (in the case of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings), I read them solely for enjoyment and did not respond viscerally to the intended themes until much later, when I actually learned what they were. Documentaries, on the other hand, are effective mediums – but the public would have to be self-interested to watch them in the first place.

  23. One novel that has altered my perception of societal norms and my own place in the world is “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe. The novel centers around the main character Okonkwo, a man who lived in a Nigerian tribe in the 19th century. His life is altered due to the influx of foreign colonizers. The British completely overturned the way of life for Okonkwo and his people- their traditions, their mannerisms, and their religious obligations were forced to change forever.
    In her novel “Inventing Human Rights”, Hunt made an interesting point in discussing how empathy may have brought about the advent of human rights. When one identifies with someone else, one obtains the “moral sympathy” that coincides with human rights. Similarly, in “Things Fall Apart”, empathy plays an important role for the reader. One feels sympathetic for Okonkwo and identifies with his tribal life, as Chinua Achebe describes his position in society as the leader and head of his family. When the British arrive and overtake his people, I had a realization of how the European style of living is not necessarily the ‘right’ way or the ‘only’ way. I feel that I now have the responsibility to respect other cultures and dismiss the notion that my style of living is in any way superior to way of life of others.

  24. While it is difficult for me to pinpoint one work of literature or film that has altered my political perspective, I do think that general artistic trends and philosophical movements can affect cultural attitudes and beliefs, just as Lynn Hunt argues in her book.

    Hunt makes some salient points in the first couple chapters of “Inventing Human Rights,” especially in her discussion of the rise of refined arts that fostered a physically contained, spectator public and debates on the place of sensibility and emotion in these experiences. I follow her logic when she argues that the rise of individual sensibility, brought about through these arts which included novels, allowed for empathy and recognition of the individual sensibilities of other humans, which could have indirectly led to a reformed judicial punishment system.

    I find it a little difficult to make a direct connection between novel-reading and the evolution of an entire societal mindset. Perhaps these novels should be examined as evidence — and a small part — of a larger societal phenomenon, instead of as the pivotal cause of this change. I will be curious to see if Hunt defines some sort of overarching or definite cause for the societal mindset that gave birth to this conception of human rights.

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